Electronic devices have become smaller and more powerful in order to meet consumer needs and to improve portability and convenience. These advances have led to new applications for technology and new capabilities. Additionally, these advances in electronic devices have sparked an ever growing trend toward automation. One of the various aspects of automation includes inspection automation.
Various activities require some form of inspection. In the manufacturing context, for example, quality control may require inspection of various raw materials being used, inspection of processes and manufacturing steps and inspection of the final product. Inspection may help improve safety, enhance efficiency, improve quality, etc. In many situations, inspections are limited to manual inspections. Often the trained eye of an inspector may identify issues based on nearly imperceptible clues. However, while manual inspections may be very accurate, they may also be error prone. Manual inspection is often very repetitive as well as subjective to the knowledge and attention of the inspector. These factors may lead to errors (e.g., undetected defects). With the improvements in electronic device technology, hopes for an automated inspection solution have continued to increase.
However, inspection generally requires the ability to detect inconsistencies or defects without prior knowledge of what the defect may be. While this may be second nature for a human, this may be a very challenging task for an electronic device. As can be observed from this discussion, systems and methods for improving defect detection may be beneficial.